salesforce sales pitch

Both me and Alicia found the first segment to be a little disappointing. It focused much more on salesforce as a service than on why it is so essential and what it specifically can do for politics. It seemed more like than an advertisement (an hour and a half one) than a presentation predicting the direction of either politics or the Internet.


Our fearless moderator also was hilarious to a certain degree. He seemed pretty out of his element wearing jeans and a hoodie (but Alicia did note his collared shirt under it). His computer failings aside (and there were a few of them), he kept trying to push for more detailed information from the panel but he just wasn't successful at directing the conversation to the topics the panel or the audience seemed to be most interested in. At one point Laura Quinn cut him off and said, "I think it's time to take some questions."


With all that said, it is exciting to see business leaders so certain in predicting the dramatic increase the Internet will imminently have in politics. If salesforce really can help spur that along, then a sacrifice of an hour and a half is more than fine by me.


Laura Quinn did have a particularly interesting speech however about the rise of one-to-one marketing for politics. She discussed how new products (including salesforce of course) are allowing campaign data to be stored and shared instead of discarded or left in car trunks or basements. This allows for politicians to track donor habits and opinions of their supporters or swing voters and how they would like them to vote. This is a much more accurate method than if they only ask them right before begging for money during a campaign once every few years.